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Month: November 2012

Selvskryt

Selvskryt

Selvskryt is Norwegian for bragging, literally “self-praise”. Something I’d normally try to avoid, but today I’d like to show some things I’m really proud of 🙂

First all all: Turboka. An ambitious (voluntary!) project by Troms Turlag (the local leg of the Norwegian Trekking Association), Ti på Topp (which is run by Troms og Finnmark Bedriftsidrettskrets) and Tromsø Fotoklubb to write a hiking book for day trips around Tromsø. Everyone could send in pictures, and I sent LOTS. It helped that I’ve been very active this summer, climbing 17 out of the 20 Ti på Topp mountains for example. I also went to some places especially for the book, as the photo editor regularly sent me a list of places they needed more photos of. Fun! I almost always take a set of photos from the top of a mountain, to later stitch together as a panorama. These panoramas are now the opening photo (spread over 2 pages) for each chapter in the book! Here is one example…

<img class="aligncenter" src="http://images.hanneketravels.net/fastlandet.jpg"

And as if that wasn’t enough honour, they asked me if I could take the cover photo! Wow! This was less than a week before I was leaving to the States, so I kept my fingers crossed the weather would cooperate. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do everything on my own. Pål Jakobsen, the main editor, had arranged models and chosen a location. We woke up to fog on the morning of the shoot, but it disappeared by noon, as forecasted (phew 😉 ). We went up a VERY steep slope on the north side of Tromsdalen, I was so glad that we had a 6 year old with us to keep the pace down 😀 I was nervous, as I don’t normally work with models, and I was so scared to mess up this big assignment 😉 but I am proud to say I pulled it off, and this is the result (click for a larger version):

Turboka - the front cover

(the photo on the far left isn’t mine, and the photo editor (Jens Kristian Nilsen) did all the hard work stitching the panorama!)

The book is in the shops now, and it’s simply fantastic! More than 500 photos from lots of different photographers, and so many amazing trips… I am already makings lists for next summer 😛
Click here to preview several pages in the book.

But that wasn’t all… I also got one of my aurora pictures published in the European Meteorological Calendar for 2013. This calendar is published by the Deutsche Meteorologische Gesellshaft. It’s A3 sized – don’t think I’ve ever seen my photo printed so big! They picked my photo after it came 4th in the European Meteorological Society photo competition earlier this year. You can see more details and a short story about each months’s photo here.

The European Meteorological Calendar My photo for February :)

And there is more… I also got 2 photos in the Tromsø calendar published by Tromsø Fotoklubb 🙂 One of Ian on his way to the toilet on our trip to Nonsbu in crazy weather (one of my most successful photos which won a few competitions, and it was taken with a compact camera through the window of the cabin :D) and a photo of Polaria (the museum in front of Paul’s institute) mirrored in a huge puddle of water.

Tromsø calendar by Tromsø Fotoklubb This photo of Ian on his way to the toilet has become my most successful image :D Polaria, the museum in front of Paul's institute, was mirrored in an enormous puddle of rain/melt water once

GIVEAWAY!
I have 5 Tromsø calendars to give away as a thank you to all of you who read this bragging post all the way to the end 😛 Leave me a comment if you’re interested in a Tromsø calendar! If I get more than 5 comments, I’ll do a draw on Monday 12 November 🙂

USA Adventure Part 4: Fisher Towers

USA Adventure Part 4: Fisher Towers

Before our trip to the USA, we spent a lot of time finding accommodation. Paul wasn’t too keen on sleeping in a tent for 3 weeks, and neither of us wanted to sleep in soulless hotels, so we put a lot of effort into finding nice places to stay, mostly cabins. The cabin we found in Moab wasn’t actually in Moab itself (a very touristy town), but a 20-30 minute drive away along the Colorado River. It was located on a horse ranch, so we weren’t completely alone there, but it certainly felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. The cabin was small, but very cosy, and we enjoyed sitting on the front step in the morning 🙂 It was true Wild West style, with swing doors to the toilet and photos of John Wayne everywhere 😉

Our fantastic cabin in the middle of nowhere! Inside our cosy cabin, with swing doors to the bathroom :)

One morning I got up before sunrise (thanks to the jetlag 😉 ), and walked to the Colorado River (right behind the cabin). It was so beautiful to watch the changing light over the desert. Early in the morning, the temperature is comfortable and the light is very soft.

The dirtroad to our cabin at sunrise Reflections in the Colorado River, just behind our cabin, at sunrise

The Fisher Towers are a couple of spectacular sandstone towers that we could see from the cabin. So on the third day (our last full day in Moab) we decided to stay close to home, and hike to the Fisher Towers. It was a hot day, so we had to take it easy…

Starting our hike to Fisher Towers in the hot midday sun We took a break whenever we found a suitable place in the shade

Soon we reached the foot of the towers, they are so spectacular. You get cramp in your neck from watching up at those giants!

The massive towers: you can see a tiny Paul on the path at the bottom A flowering bush

It almost felt like walking around in a dream world (or for geeks like me: in a computer game 😉 ) as the views are so different from anything we had ever seen before, and there was something new to see around every corner.

We saw two persons climbing one of the towers - scary! The Titan ;)

The path loops around the base of the Towers, which makes you feel very small! Once we had to climb down a metal ladder at a particularly steep bit.

This path made you feel really small... At one point, they built a metal ladder at a steep drop

At times the path was quite exposed, but generally it was an easy hike. We did see a couple of people climbing one of the towers (with ropes of course), scary!! Looking through the visitors logbook at the start of the trail, it’s quite a popular place for climbers looking for a challenge 😉

This hike was so beautiful, every turn was worth a photo! Tiny Hanneke taking another photo...

Here we’ve reached the end of the trail (there was a nice wooden sign saying END OF TRAIL), and we enjoyed a long break with spectacular views.

At the end of the trail, with a fantastic view The Colorado River in the distance

It was early evening by now, and the setting sun was painting the rocks a very deep orange – so beautiful!

A panorama of the spectacular view from the trail end As the sun was setting, the Towers turned a deep orange

We knew we had to hurry a bit to make it back to the car before dark, but it was impossibly not to take lots of photos with this beautiful light…

On our way back This rock looked like a giant egg :)

And it just got better and better!

We knew we had to hurry a bit to make it back before dark, but it's hard to hurry up with such views! Looking back at the path

Until the sun finally set, and the crescent moon came out.

Surrounded by giants At sunset... so incredibly beautiful :)

In this part of the world, it changes from sunset to pitch black quickly, so after the last photo above, we almost RAN back to the car – but we did make it without having to use head torches 🙂